Surah 32
The Prostration
1. Aleph Laam Meem [A L M],
2. The descent of the Book unquestionably from the Lord of the worlds,
3. Or do they say that he [the messenger] has fabricated it, but indeed it is the Law from your Lord, so you may warn a people what a warner brought to them before you, may they be guided,
[Every time a previous warner is mentioned, Islamic scholars have taken it to mean that no warner was sent to the Arabs before the Qur’an,
The many meanings and usages of “ما" in Arabic, as an adverb, a determiner and a pronoun … makes the multi-layer of meanings possible …
Our reading of verse 3 is consistent with our reading of other verses which tell of the previous Books being between the hands of the prophet,
Let’s not forget that the Qur’an was descended many centuries after Christianity and a few millennia after Abraham and Judaism,
The migration between the various parts of the Levant and the Middle East never stopped, as is the case in the present …
To assume that then Arabs had no knowledge of Christianity and Judaism and had never heard of the Torah and the Gospels is as fictitious as many other assumptions that Islamic scholars have made across the ages …: for the purpose of religious division, exclusiveness and self-selection.]
4. [It is] God Who created the heavens and the earth and what’s between them in six Days, then surmounted He the Throne, you have not below Him a patron or an origin,
[So here the Qur’an recounts what was told in Genesis about the creation of the world in “six Days”,
The Days cannot be taken as the calendar days that we are familiar with, which couldn’t have existed while the world was being created …, but indeed, the calendar days that we are familiar with can only be a physical projection of such cosmic essences which preceded their manifestation,
The Ghita also mentions the Days of Brahman, being periods of repose and creation,
Whether physics will one day be able to provide a theory consistent with what came in Genesis, the Ghita and the Qur’an: remains a big question.
The word “شفع", which is understood to mean intercession, as in support: the root of it in Arabic points to duality, and the intercession thus becomes a metaphorical usage,
Hence, “و الشفع و الوتر” is saying: by the duality and by the unity,
These are philosophic concepts that have featured in all Tawheedic messages from the Far East to the West, going through the Middle East,
The Pantheist philosophies of Europe, from the Classics to the recent ones: are none but a reminder of this Tawheedic reality.]
5. Manages He the aim from the heaven to the earth, then swerves He to it, in a Day measuring one thousand years of what you [the people] count,
6. That is the Knower of the Unseen and the Witness, the Exalted the Compassionate,
[Again, there’s consistency between those verses and what came in the Ghita and the Hikmah,
How people witness the Downpour of God onto the world in vision: is not an aim that can be articulated …
Hence the many levels and angles of vision or the lack of it …
And hence the hints to it in all the Books, rather than the definitions and the pointing to places, things and people …
A big mistake is made when definitions are set by religious authorities: to steal the vision and to claim exclusive ownership of it …, because of their failure to witness it …]
7. [He] Who perfected everything that He created, and began He the creation of man from Substance,
8. Then made He his offspring from a chain of low cast water,
9. Then He straightened him and inspired from His Spirit in him, and made He for you the hearing, the vision and the hearts, but little do you [the people] thank,
10. And they said: “if we are let loose in the earth, we are in a new creation”; nay, they are about the encounter of their Lord distancing,
[The magic of the creator that monotheist religions conceive upon reading the story of the Creation, whether in Genesis or the subsequent Books, is the product of their own intellectual and emotional faculties,
A sculptor chisels off bits of rock, and polishes up his marks, and after many days or perhaps years of hard work: the once formless spiritless rock becomes bursting with the virtue of an image …
And that’s because after many years of learning and observing, and lot of coordination of vision and handwork …: he is now capable of bringing down law into matter …
In Existence: it should be visioned as omniscience, simultaneity and spontaneity,
How Existence became: is beyond intellectual comprehension, capable of formulating only causes and effects, in a linear fashion,
It is the Genius of Beginning Oneself,
It is not for a god’s satisfaction that all this is happening …
And neither is it for people’s eternal residence in an accidental place of discovery and learning …
Especially if the purpose of discovery and learning is forgotten … and people are only interested in recycling their passions and fallacies, and their tribes and the organic matter from which they are made …]
11. Say: “he will redeem you: the angel of death who is in charge of you, then to your Lord you will be returned”,
12. And if you see, when the criminals duck their heads in their Lord [saying]: “our Lord, we’ve seen and heard, do return us, we’ll do good we are certain”,
13. Had We willed, We would’ve brought to every self her guidance, but the say is due from Me: “I shall fill hell from the Garden and the people all together,
14, “Do experience what you’ve forgotten of the encounter of this day of yours, We have made you forget [we read “نَسَّيْناكم"], do experience the suffering of the residence, by what you were doing",
15. That those who believe our verses are them who, if reminded of them, they breakdown prostrating, and transcend in the Ubiquity of their Lord, they don’t look down [on them],
[The intellectual and sensual experience of being in a physical body: is so convincing, even the messengers and their righthand assistants and the high beings: want to experience it for the purpose of conquering it and setting themselves free from it, and guiding others to do the same …
But no one is given a special treatment. Every living being submits to the same karmic law and laws of nature …
This is the miracle of this grand creation, that has come to this point of complexity in a far distance from its Reality,
The Books and all the messages have persistently frightened people from it …
Because, indeed, the suffering that it can bring onto the participant in it can be enormous,
As independent beings: people cannot be forced out of it: they have to make that choice consciously and earnestly …
But the oscillating nature of existence: between Existence and distance: retrieves the entire cosmic manifestation: and people do realise then that it was an adventure that brought suffering onto them, but as this grand Book says, they’ll demand to be returned to it to do better …]
16. Their sides retreat from their beds [figuratively, they can’t go to sleep], they invoke their Lord, of fear and want, and what We provide them they utilise,
[One can’t fall asleep when darkness is being broken, and behind the black clouds beams of bright light glare one’s eye’s retina, real in a closed eye, and the round moon might be seen …]
17. Not a soul knows what is made private to them of an eye’s comfort: reward of what they were doing [or indeed undoing],
18. Is he who was a believer like him who was aberrant? they equal not,
19. As for those who believed and did good: for them is the paradise of a refuge, a residence by what they were doing,
20. As for those who were aberrant: their shelter is the fire, every time they want a way out of it, they are returned to it, and it is said to them: “do experience the suffering of the fire which you were denying”,
21. And We shall make them experience the nearest of the suffering, below the greatest of the suffering, may they [want to] return,
[People are remitted in what they understand the world and their life in it to be …
Although their world is a world of constant competition and strife, they deny that this is just a low state of being,
They believe that this is their god’s grand plan, to be followed by the total destruction of their enemies and an eternal life in a paradise where all their desires are fulfilled …
A lower state of being is perhaps what Buddhist teaching describes as a ghostly existence in total darkness …]
22. And who is darker than him who was reminded of his Lord’s verses then he turned away? We are repellers of the criminals,
[The Arabic word “مُنتقم" must not be taken in the sense of “vengeful”, when attributed to God’s messengers …
Avenge and retaliation are a primitive pursuit, fitting only low stations of beliefs,
And the root of it (نقم), which points to “to reject something and turn it back” does allow this reading by which the outcome of disbelief is a self-inflicted punishment, rather than a god’s vengeance.]
23. And We bestowed the Book onto Moses: “so, be not in obscurement about encountering Him”, and We made it/him guidance to the children of Israel,
[Islamic scholars want to have us believe that Moses had to encounter Muhammad when the latter was flown to Jerusalem …
And as if the ultimate purpose of faith is to see the prophets …!
This Circle has told them, and will tell them again …
All Abrahamic religions have equated their prophet with God,
When they write the names side by side, when they say their witness, and when they describe their salvation …
And each religion see the other religions’ fault, but fail to see their own …]
24. And We made imams of them, guiding [the people] with our Aim, that of what they forbore, and of Our verses they were certain,
[The forbearance that is the persistence to expand and polish up one’s own character and mind,
This is the pursuit of the people on the Way of God that takes many lives over, and bigger difficulties are yet to come: fitting one’s strength and resolve …
But the joy of the journey never fades, and gets stronger indeed ...]
25. That your Lord Who separates between them the day of the Up-rise, in what they were differing about,
26. Didn’t He demonstrate to the how many of civilisations We destroyed before them, they walk in their dwellings; indeed, marvels are in this, don’t they hear,
[This is being said while the ruins of pre-ancient civilisations are being exposed and studied by alternative researchers,
It’s going to take some time before the world admits that life and civilisation on earth have been on it for millions and billions of years,
There’s no universe without the man observing it, and the philosophic and scientific search for the origin of life will take a different direction.]
27. Do they not see that We flow the water to the dry land, We bring out vegetation by it, their Bounties [messengers] and their own selves eat from it, don’t they see?
28. And they say: “so when is this revelation if you were honest?”,
29. Say: “the day of Revelation: the belief of those who have disbelieved will not benefit them, they will not be looked”,
[Revelation is happening already …
It is not the Muslims' conquest of all the world …
The word “فتح” doesn’t mean conquest except in the dictionaries of Islamic scholars,
They’ve given their followers the false hope that one day the Muslims will conquer the world and impose Sharia … and god will be happy with them …
They have to look at the state of backwardness in the countries which go by Sharia: to come quickly to the conclusion that this can’t be God’s plan for the world, if they still have the minutest degree of reason left in them …]
30. Turn away [addressing the messenger] from them and wait, they are being awaited
